Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Well, I unfortunately didn't meet my self imposed End of Year resolution to work on my 28mm VOTOM/Heavy Gear hybrid models. I just couldn't get myself motivated to paint them up and found it easier instead to just chug along in World of Tanks instead. I'm hoping to work on them sometime in the near future but it looks I just followed DP9's lead for my Heavy Gear project. I've been waiting for the November update for the Nublitz rules but we're approaching February and they're no where in sight. Initially they were pushed officially back to Christmas (halfway into December) and then New Years but that obviously didn't work out. I believe the current estimate is the end of January but I'm getting a distinctly Northern Lion's Wrath PDF feel from this as that too was delayed for many months. Hopefully the behind the scenes work on the kickstarter that is supposed to deliver late this year isn't experiencing the same delays as the public rules update is. *fingers crossed*

I did however do some work on my Primarch-scale Space Wolf conversions. While the actual primarchs themselves were modelled last year, I've been tweaking their bases and their accompanying wolves in the meantime.

Starting with Horus, I primed his scenic 120mm oval base and the two thunderwolves that will be mounted on it for his "sled" rules profile. I tweaked the position of both wolves to give them a better fit on the oval base and added the scenic rocks to their 40mm bases to break up the ground visually in front of the staircase. Both wolves are modeled with stormshield generators attaches to their harnesses since they have a 4+ invul save. I plan on occasionally using them along with two other 60mm thunderwolves as counts as wolf lords on thunderwolves as well (with no shooting weapons obviously) to accompany Logan when he isn't on his ridiculous sled that GW designed (and that he beat up Santa Claus to get). I tried to model Logan as a post-First War for Armageddon younger version of himself both since the "older" heads I had available didn't fill out the model enough (the actual Horus head is a bit bigger) and because I actually really like that particular head. Since Logan has been Chapter Master for 400+ years, I figure it wouldn't be an issue to present a more youthful version. I also changed out the maul for Logan's axe from the new kit as well as added more wolfie bits to the model along with obliterating any eyes of Horus.

Next up, we have my Iron Priest conversion using Ferrus Manus. I used most (but not all) of Ferrus' Servo Harness arms but had to leave out the actual backpack as it stuck out way too far when on top of the cloak I converted. I added a wolf pelt instead of the groin pturges and used them to bulk up around his arms. I didn't have enough of them to use actually as normally modelled as some of those very fragile pieces broke. As with Horus, I added several wolfie bits to him and took off most of the Iron Hands iconography. For his head, I actually used Horus and I plan on using decals to mark both his arms and his bald head with Fenrisian tribal tattoos. For his thunderwolf, I converted both legs to using the bionic bits from the kit as well as using the bionic enhanced head. I converted left over Logan's sled bits to give him a harness connected to some stormshields to increase his "mech" bits even more. As with Horus/Logan, he is usable both by himself on his 40mm base as well as attached to his 60mm Thunderwolf version. In game, I plan on using him as a Wolf Lord on a thunderwolf since there are no rules for enhanced HQ Iron Priests with the current Space Wolf rules. Accompanying him are two converted servitors made using prepainted plastic models and various 40k bits. I realize that the servitors look a bit more like techpriests and likely need a few more wolfie bits to distinguish them but I'm not sure if I want to make them too Space Wolf specific.

Sometime either this week or next, I hope to start painting up one of the two groups of models above. In honor of the original heritage of the Logan model conversion, I'll likely do them in a 13th company/preheresy darker grey paint scheme instead of the mixed grey/blue one the wolves currently have.